Town of Rochester

TOWN BOARD MEETING DISOVLES [sic] INTO SHOUTING MATCH:

The porno showdown with the Rochester Town Board tonight dissolved in shouting matches, the blaring horns of pickup trucks and a legal standoff.

The jam-packed meeting never got to the demands of the resignation of town Supervisor Pam Duke and Councilman Francis Gray. Members of the Rochester Republicans Club had mailed 2,000 multi-colored, slick paper fliers to town residents urging them to attend the tonight's meeting at Town Hall.

"WARNING: Sexually Explicit Material" the flier blared across the top. The flier said Duke and Gray, among other board members, charged a local woman with being associated with a pornographic web site. The charge came during an executive session to interview the woman, Manuela Mihailescu, for a position on the town's Historic Preservation Commission.

"Ridiculous," Mihailescu said last night. "Absurd." "Inconceivable." That's one side of the dispute, town attorney Rod Futerfas told the crowd of about 80 that jammed Town Hall. Another 50-80 people milled in the cold outside and pickup trucks circled in the parking lot, blaring their horns and flashing their headlights. State Police were on hand, but made no arrests during the session.

UPDATE: Commenter Jason Kovacs provides a link to this Daily Freeman article that clarifies the issue:

A capacity crowd in the Rochester Town Hall - and more people outside honking their horns - became too rowdy for the Town Board to handle Thursday night, and the board's monthly meeting was adjourned after only 20 minutes.

More than 100 people came to the meeting, many to protest what they believe was unfair treatment by the board of town resident Manuela Mihailescu, a candidate for the town's Historic Preservation Commission.

Mihailescu claims that, during an interview with the board last week, she was accused of being associated with a pornographic Web site. She says the allegation - which the board told her was based on an Internet search of her name - is false and that she was targeted by the mostly Democratic body because her husband, Jon Dogar-Marinesco, is active in town Republican politics.